The Enchantment (13 page)

She frowned. "But—"

Larence shook his head. "It wouldn't be right. They're ready, willing, and able to come. The money is theirs to keep."

A headache started, slow and thudding, in the back of Emma's skull. She could tell by the implacable set to Larence's square jaw that his mind was made up. "Fine," she spat. "Just throw the supplies in the wagon and we'll get started."

"Wagon?" Henry and Larence said together.

A sick feeling crept into Emma's stomach and twisted.

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"I thought I told you," Larence said. "The only way to Cibola is by—"

No. No. No.

"—horseback."

She squeezed her eyes shut. God, she didn't even like paintings of horses. "How long?"

"About a week. One way," Henry answered. "Of course, that's assuming you're not walking."

Emma's eyes popped open. "Walking?"

"I didn't plan for you when I outfitted Larence's expedition. So there's only the one horse—and I had to go all the way to Santa Fe to find a beginner's mount. Everyone out here rides." He studied her. "I don't suppose you're much of a horsewoman?"

Emma thought about the one time she'd tried to pet a cab horse. The ungrateful beast had bitten her fingers. She flashed Henry a sarcastic smile. "I don't suppose so."

"There's the pack mule. ..."

She stared at him in disbelief.

"No, I guess not." He frowned in thought for a moment, then shrugged. "I guess you'll just have to walk."

She didn't even dignify that with an answer.

"You could take my horse."

The offer was made so quietly, she almost missed it. Hope flared, then fizzled. Guilt curled in her stomach for even considering his offer. She wouldn't give two cents to a dying man, and he—a cripple—would give up his horse so that she wouldn't have to walk. She licked her overly dry lips and shook her head.

"You couldn't walk that far. ..."

"Wait a minute," Henry said, "I just thought of something. Javi!"

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A squat, dark-skinned man emerged from the crowd of Indians and shuffled over to where they stood.

"Yes, Professor Stanton?"

"Would you be willing to sell Is-ta-shi to this lady?"

Javi pulled the battered straw hat off his head. His dark, dirty fingers twisted the pale brim as he stared at Henry. "I don't know ... my Tashee's a smart one, and the children love her. ..."

Emma sighed impatiently. "How much?"

Javi shot her a startled look. "Pardon?"

"How much do you want for the nag?" Emma glanced around. "Where is it, anyway?"

"Wait a minute, miss, my Tashee is—"

Henry laid a pale hand on Javi's serape-ed shoulder. "She's from the city."

Javi looked at her warily. ' 'Ah ..."

"The thing is, Javi," Henry said smoothly, "my friends need Tashee. Just for a few weeks—maybe they could rent her?"

Javi thought about that for a moment, then nodded slowly. "Okay. I will rent her for thirty dollars."

"Thirty dollars!"

Henry grabbed Emma's arm tightly. "That would be good, Javi. Tack included?"

"Sure, but you don't need no tack with my Tashee. She follow like a baby lamb."

"Good," Henry said with a smile.

"Thank you," Larence said softly. "We appreciate your generosity."

Javi grinned and hurried off.

Emma snorted. "Generosity. Ha! I could buy a thoroughbred stallion for that."

"You know, Miss Hatter," Henry said, "this is New Mexico, not New York. You might try—"

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"Don't bother, Henry," Emma said with a wave of her sweaty, gloved hand. "Better men than you have tried to change me. I like the way I am." That said, she slammed her arms across her chest and closed her eyes against the sun's bright glare, waiting impatiently for her mount.

"Here she is," Javi said, his voice thick with pride.

Grimacing, Emma opened her eyes. And froze. "No way," she mumbled, shaking her head and taking a step backward.

Larence grinned at her. "No way what?"

A loud bray split the silence. Sour breath slammed into Emma's nostrils. Big, square, yellow teeth laughed at her.

"I am not riding an ass to Cibola."

She was riding an ass through the desert. Unbelievable.

Thank God it would be a short trip. All she wanted to do was get to the city, get the gold, and get out.

Already impatient to be making better time, she glanced at the deserted landscape stretched out before her. The desolation of it made Emma feel a twinge of anxiety. She'd never been out of the city in her life. .

. .

"Don't be a fool," she soothed herself. "If you could survive in Rosare Court, you can survive anywhere."

The realization brought the expected calm. She settled deeper onto the strange combined pack and riding saddle Javi had provided as "tack." The animal's backbone made even modest comfort impossible.

With an irritated sigh she flicked open her utilitarian steel pocket watch and checked the time again. It was 5:45. Soon it would start getting hot. Henry had told her that yesterday's weather had been unseasonably warm, but not at all unusual. At her frown, he'd laughed, telling her that nothing from snow to eighty-degree weather was "unusual" for New Mexico in April.

She hoped she hadn't made a mistake by refusing to accept the clothes he'd offered her.

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No, she told herself, she'd made the right decision. The black wool traveling suit she'd been wearing for nearly a week would do just fine. Even if it did bunch up around her thighs. After all, there was no one out here to notice the way her pantaletted legs swung like cotton-clad pendulums on either side of Tashee's squat body. No one but Larence; and God knew, he didn't matter.

She might be down on her luck, but she wasn't a Mexican peasant, and she refused to dress like one.

Emma's lips pursed in disapproval. Clinging, off-the-shoulder cotton blouses, free-flowing skirts, thin leather slippers . . . Ha! She wouldn't be caught dead dressed like that.

Larence twisted around in his saddle to talk to her. "I think—oof." He hit the dirt, hard.

A cloud of dust puffed up around him. Coarse, hacking laughter echoed from within the dirty brown haze. Sputtering, hacking, he waited for the dust to clear, then pushed to his feet. The first thing Emma saw was the bright white of his smile.

"Quite a fall, huh?" Suppressed laughter and inhaled dust thickened his voice.

Emma bit back a sharp retort. God help them, they weren't one hundred feet from Albuquerque and he'd already fallen. She pulled out her pocket watch and studied the stark, undecorated face.

"Six o'clock." She snapped it shut. "Let's get going. Henry said it would probably start getting hot around eleven."

Larence dusted himself off and wandered back to Diablo, who'd stopped dead when his rider fell. "Hi, boy. It'll take a little getting used to, I guess. Hope you'll help me out."

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He was talking to his horse.

Diablo whickered softly and rubbed his broad face up and down Larence's denim-clad leg.

Emma rolled her eyes. "Are you going to ride him or marry him, for God's sake? Let's go."

Larence cast her an amused glance, then awkwardly remounted. When he hit the seat, Diablo lurched into a trot.

Tashee surged forward. Emma flopped backward, landing hard on the burro's bony spine. Her left toe slammed into a big rock, and a pain sliced through her foot.

She stifled a curse and clung to the wooden X that made up the saddle's makeshift horn, bouncing atop the burro's bone-jarring trot. She squeezed her eyes shut. Please let me stay on. . . .

The trot turned into a manageable walk. Emma let out a sigh of relief. She'd made it. Her fingers released their white-knuckled grip on the wood and regathered the reins she'd dropped.

It took her a moment to open her eyes, and after that, a moment to realize what she was seeing.

Diablo's huge butt.

Emma's lips thinned with disgust. She tugged on the reins and tried to turn Tashee. The burro shook her head and kept plodding forward, her wet, snotty black muzzle pressed to Diablo's tail.

She yanked on the reins again, harder this time. Tashee gave a snort, threw her head back, and bucked.

Emma hit the dirt before she even knew she was falling.

"Larence," she cried, choking on the dust clouding around her.

Diablo stopped, swung his head around, and stared

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at her. She could almost read the animal's thoughts— and she didn't like what he was thinking.

Larence twisted in his seat. When he saw her sprawled in the dirt, his mouth twitched. "Need help?"

She scowled. Mr. Horseman was fighting laughter.

"Don't you dare," she said thickly, tasting grit on her tongue.

"Me? Never."

Just then a warm, wet muzzle pushed against Emma's cheek. A moist tongue streaked up her throat. With a cry of disgust, she slapped the nose away and glared at the pack mule who was nuzzling her. "Get away from me."

The mule got back in line behind Tashee. Emma got to her feet slowly, testing her backside for bruises.

Shaking the dust from her clothes, she grabbed her hem, pulled it between her legs to make a makeshift riding skirt, and climbed back in place.

Grabbing the reins, she nodded curtly to Larence. But he wasn't looking at her face. His eyes were riveted to her drawer-clad legs. His openly interested gaze traveled down the length of her leg and back up again. Slowly. Almost appreciatively.

With a snort, she shoved her skirts down as far as they would go.

Laughing, he turned back around. "Let's go, Diablo."

They were off again, plodding toward the bridge.

Bored, Emma glanced around. New Mexico stretched out before her like a length of flat, camel-hued wool. Here and there, dots of squat, lonely, gray-green shrubs defied the sun, and along the twisting, greenbelted bos-que of the Rio Grande, a few cottonwoods held the desert at bay.

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But mostly there was nothing here. No birds spiraling through the hazy predawn light; no snakes slithering across the cool morning ground; no buildings or homes or offices; no swirling current of a clear mountain stream.

There was only the thunking sound of hooves hitting the planks of the bridge. And then, when they'd crossed the river, even that was gone.

Every time Emma looked at Diablo's butt—and she could hardly miss it—she felt a growing surge of resentment. It stuck in her craw to ride behind Larence. Her place was in front of him, leading. At the very least, she belonged beside him, an equal. But thanks to the traitor of a female beneath her, she was riding along behind like a dutiful wife.

For the next week she'd see nothing but rocks, dust, dirt, and a horse's ass. "Perfect," she muttered to herself, "just bloody perfect."

"Isn't it?" Larence's enthusiastic answer floated on the resin-scented air. "I'm so glad you decided to come. I knew that once you were out here, you'd see how wonderful everything is." He twisted in the saddle to talk to her. "I'll bet you never—

He was down.

Diablo stopped dead. Tashee rammed into his backside and bounced backward. The pack mule hit Tashee's butt, and the little burro crow-hopped in response. Emma wobbled and slid sideways, landing with a soft plop on the ground beside Tashee.

She clenched her fists and slugged the hard-packed earth, fighting the urge to scream at the top of her lungs.

Walking would have been faster.

Hell, crawling would have been faster.

I

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The sun continued its slow, inexorable trek into the sky. Quickly warming rays slid across the ground, casting the harsh, inhospitable landscape in late morning light. The spikes and thorns of a thousand low scrub bushes glinted green, and the dirt beneath the horse's hooves shone like gold dust.

A red-tailed hawk glided effortlessly in a giant, spiraling arc through the cloudless blue sky. Larence leaned back and looked up.

The movement upset his precarious balance, and he fell, hitting the ground with a thud. His first reaction was to laugh. The pure, clear sound of his joy rose into the bright spring air, and made him feel even better.

God, it felt good to be alive. He turned his face toward the morning sun, reveling in the warm feel of it against his cheeks. A sigh-soft breeze ruffled his hair, caressed his flesh.

A thick curse shattered his peace. He glanced at Tashee and saw a blur of black and then a cloud of dust.

Emma hit the ground beside him. Waves of gray-brown dust wafted over to him, insinuating its gritty, peppery fingers into his nose and eyes.

He waited for her laughter to join his. He didn't know why he expected it—she hadn't laughed yet, and she'd fallen almost as many times as he had. But still he expected it. Wanted it. Missed it.

He was always doing that—expecting people to take the same joy from life that he did. And with Emma, he was always wrong, always disappointed.

He shifted slightly to ease the ache in his ankle and noticed the treasure beside him. A flowering hedgehog cactus. Its beauty nearly stole his breath.

Swiveling to face it, he pulled the small, leather-

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bound notebook from his shirt pocket and began sketching the cactus.

He heard Emma get to her feet beside him, heard the no-nonsense crunching of her heels in the loose dirt as she dusted herself off and remounted. But he didn't bother looking up. His fingers were flying now, capturing the haphazardly placed gray-green spikes on the blank page.

"Hey, Emmaline," he called out, excited as the first bloom materialized perfectly beneath his pen, "come look at this."

She didn't, of course, come anywhere near him, and he hadn't expected her to. Still, he couldn't help asking—hoping.

"Oh, for God's sake, Larence, it looks just like all the other scrubby little dirt-weeds you've been jumping—or falling—down to draw since we left Albuquerque."